I knew to expect him. But still, somehow, it was a surprise to see Sebastian on my doorstep later that morning. The first words I said to my brother were, “That was a low fucking blow.”

He didn’t even ask me what I was talking about. He just pushed past me into my apartment. I was surprised to see that his Royal Guard wasn’t Roone but two others I hadn’t seen before. Did you want it to be Roone? You owe the guy an apology. Yeah, I owed a lot of people a lot of things.

“I don’t think you understand. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get you home.”

“Except it’s not my home, is it?”

“What the fuck are you talking about Lucas? Everything I’ve done has been with you in mind, trying to do what our father wanted, trying to give you as much freedom as possible. And then you just take off? What? The women in the Winston Isles weren’t enough for you? You had to go on some prolonged bender?”

“I don’t need a horde of women Sebastian. I just—”

“You just what?”

I glared at him. How was I supposed to tell him that everything he’d worked for, everything he tried for, was a sham? A lie. A fraud. Would he believe I didn’t know anything about it?

“Just tell me why you fucking took off. Look, I get it, the need to blow off some steam. Be wild. Go crazy. And yeah, I know you liked it, you love to have fun, but I could see it. There was something serious about you. Like you wanted this. So, why do the one thing guaranteed to put you in danger?”

“It’s so easy to be a king, isn’t it? To give a direct order and expect people to follow it?” Okay, I was venturing toward prick territory. I shook my head. “You shouldn’t have sent her.”

“What choice did you leave me? Your phones are off. You don’t answer email, if you’re even checking it. You’re practically off the fucking grid. You have more IDs than I can possibly find. So, when Blake Security located you, I had no choice but to send her.”

Those fuckers, they told me they hadn’t told anyone where I was.

“Sebastian look, I’m bad news anyway. I am not the guy you should be wasting your time and energy on. I’m all fucked up. And trouble follows me around. I’ll singlehandedly besmirch the Winston name.”

“Shut up. What the fuck are you on about? That shit with Tressel? As if I don’t see through his plan.”

My brows snapped down. “What shit with Tressel? I sent you a report before I left.”

He sighed. “About that. After you vanished, Tressel sent his own report, one that pointed at you embezzling money from the fund.”

Fury flooded my veins. “That is bullshit.” I stepped into Sebastian’s space and I jabbed him in the chest. “I never would have even taken that job if you hadn’t forced me.”

“I didn’t force you.”

“Yes, you did. You were talking about inclusion and wanting to help people and shit. Telling me something our father would have been proud for me to do.”

Sebastian nodded. “Those were all true things.”

“I didn’t fucking steal from you. Don’t you get how this works? A long con? I’d get you to voluntarily give me money. I wouldn’t steal it from you. It’s just not the purpose of the con. It’s easier to get you to give it over voluntarily than it is to try and steal it. And also, fuck, as far as I was concerned then, you were my brother. Family. I wouldn’t have done that.”

“I know.” Then he frowned. “What do you mean were?”

I ignored the question, letting my anger doing the talking. “And that pompous, arrogant ass, accusing me, and you don’t even ask me questions. I mean—" Finally, it slowly hit me what he’d just said. “You know?”

He rolled his eyes. “What? You think this is my first rodeo? I know when I’m being gaslighted. I know that you’re my brother and you wouldn’t steal from me. He’d muddied the books to make it look like the money started disappearing when you started working for the trust. Your findings and analysis were more consistent with what I know to have happened. So I’m working on a plan to ensure that Tressel’s out. I need to do it carefully, but I know you didn’t steal from me. The point is he’s trying to make it seem like you would, bringing up things like your past and your history. I’m going to have to quiet him. I say we go ahead and get you coronated and make the announcement, even before we find our sister, Jessa. It wasn’t the original plan, but I think it’s really the best one. If—”

I shook my head and interrupted him. “No. Stop it. This has to stop now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sebastian, I’m not just going to come back to Winston Isles and be some prince.”

“Give me one reason why not. If your past is coming back for you, you can be protected. You have the full advantage of the Royal Guard. Blake Security can stay all over Sandstorm and make sure he never comes for you again. I don’t understand why you insist on doing this alone. It’s futile and it’s ridiculous. I swear, you’re a fucking loner. You can’t let anyone help you for even a second.”

“I’m not your fucking brother!”

That stopped him. His eyes went wide, and he staggered back a step. “What?”

I ran my hands through my hair and started to pace. What the fuck was I supposed to say to him? He’d come all this way specifically to find me, gone through God knew what to find me, and now I was telling him that meant nothing. He’d worked his ass off for nothing.

“Tell me what the fuck you are talking about.”

I sighed and turned my hands up. There was nothing left to do but tell him the truth. “That’s what I’m fucking doing here in Italy. My mother is the reason I left. She came to see me the afternoon after the charity ball. Tony had—" I stopped trying to figure out how to say it so that he would know I hadn’t wanted to do it. I finally just said the truth. “My stepfather, Tony, had us running the Leaning Tower of Pisa. If I didn’t do it, he was going to hurt Bryna. You’d asked me to look out for her, so I did. I didn’t mean to fall in love with her. I just did. I couldn’t exactly ask for protection for her because I wasn’t supposed to touch her. I promised you that.

“So I was caught between rock and a hard place, and I just did what I felt was natural. I said yes. I wish I hadn’t. I tried to find a thousand ways to get him caught, to get him stopped. I even asked for help from Blake Security. Mueller and Weller did try to help me catch him in the act and get the cops on him, but it didn’t work. Nothing I did seemed to work. Then, at the function, Bryna caught me red-handed lifting a piece of jewelry. I’ve never been caught. Not once. Not by the cops, not by anyone. My lifts had always been pristine. But sure enough, that little slip of a girl caught me. When she did, she stopped me from making that big mistake and I listened, because I love her, and we went home.”

I was rambling. I knew I was rambling. I sounded like a mess. I took another deep breath. “So anyway, nothing happened with Bryna, really, until that point and we just—I don’t know. I think you love me because you felt like you had to. You came looking to love me. Bryna, she just loves me because of me, I guess. I was determined to be good for her. And I thought I could be. Then my mom showed up the next day and pointed out that Tony was on a rampage. He knew I tipped off the cops, and he was going to hurt her. So I put as much distance between me and her as possible. I knew that he was going to figure it out, the relationship between you and me, the whole thing. So I just flew. I didn’t have any other choices.”

“There’s always a choice Lucas. You could have talked to me. I could have done something. I could have gotten protection for Bryna. Blake Security would have done it.”

“I knew that, but for how long? That’s not the point anyway. My Mom, she was going on and on about what Tony was going to do and how I’d been careless by falling in love with her and thinking I could just stick around. And she was right. I was careless. I made a huge mistake. But I couldn’t help it. Then she dropped the real bomb on me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She told me I wasn’t a prince. Told me somebody had paid her a boat load of cash to go out with Cassius when he came to Italy. She had another boyfriend at that time, but she did what they asked. She was some kind of a struggling actress at that point in her life, and she took the bait. Then she got pregnant. Apparently, they came back and told her to keep the baby. Imagine that. Someone made a definitive product decision about me. So, she kept me. But your dad came back. He wanted to do the whole family thing. Raise me and all that. She freaked out. Those same people came back, gave her more money, to toe the line, I guess. They wanted a DNA test for proof of paternity.”

“Of course, they did. They did one on me when I was an infant too. It’s just protocol.”

“Yeah, well, my Mom freaked out about the whole thing and how it all happened, so she gave them a sample of her hair because she couldn’t be sure whose baby it was, and she was afraid that your dad would take me. Imagine her surprise when it came back positively that I was the king’s kid.”

Sebastian stared at me. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Yeah.” I ran my hands through my hair and opened the french doors out to the balcony, desperately needing the fresh air. “That’s what she laid on me. All that shit before with your father’s death and what happened to you and Penny, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This clusterfuck goes back decades. And we’re all caught up in it.”

Sebastian shook his head. “No. No, I don’t believe it. You look like him. You look like me.”

“Crazy genetics? I don’t fucking know. All I know is I was a pauper, then I was prince, and now I’m a pauper again.”

Sebastian was having none of it. “No. I’m not buying it. None of it. So, what we’re going to do is have your blood tested again. This time by people I trust. My own people.”

Why was he doing this? Why was he so insistent? I was poison to him. Having someone like me around would bring nothing but scandal. Truth be told, I was way too good at being a thief. Whispers would always follow me. “You don’t have to do that. It’s fine. I was on my own before, and I’ll be fine now. Besides, I was a hard sell from the get go, there’s no way in hell anyone would let me get away with being a prince after everything that’s happened.”

Sebastian strode over and stopped right in front of me, clamping his hands on my shoulders. “You are my brother. Like it or not, we’re family. So, we’re going to have your blood tested.”

“That same blood that was stolen from the lab on the island? How are you going to pull that one off? Besides, even if they can prove that we’re somehow related, it still doesn’t make me the prince. You can’t prove I’m Cassius’s son. He was cremated, remember?”

“Yeah, he was cremated, but I have his blood.”

I frowned. “Wasn’t there some problem about it being stolen? I feel like Roone told me some story like that.”

He shook his head. “No, I have my father’s blood. Let’s just say that I had some people secure it. Just in case.”

My eyes went wide. “Did you hire thieves?”

Sebastian laughed. “I didn’t send thieves. I sent Penny.”

I guffawed. It was the first time I’d felt like laughing in the last three months. “Penny. Calamity Penny? My sister-in-law? Adorkable. You sent her to steal something?”

Sebastian nodded. “She did great too. She went with her mom and Ariel.”

I just shook my head. I couldn’t believe it. “So, you have possession of the blood?”

Sebastian nodded. “Yup. So, we can get some definitive answer of who you are. The rest of the conspiracy shit, we’ll work on together. Right here, right now. Let’s do it.”

I didn’t want to grab on to that little tweak of hope that I’d somehow still harbored after what my mother told me. “Seb, look, there’s still a good chance that none of this will come out right.”

“I know. I got you. But, once and for all, we’re going to know. If anything else happens, I’m not worried about it. Then when this test comes back positive, you’re going to come home where you should have been all along. I should have made you fly back months ago anyway. It’s stupid that I didn’t insist on it.”

“You’re not my king.”

Sebastian shrugged, as if that was neither here nor there. “No, I am your brother.” He pulled out his phone and made a quick call. Five minutes later, Mueller was knocking at the door. When I opened it, he gave me a wide grin. “You pissed?”

I scowled. “Fuck you.”

He flashed a broad grin. “You love me. I can tell.”

Oskar turned his attention to my brother. “Your Majesty, I brought what you needed.”

Sebastian started rolling up his sleeve and then inclined his head toward Oskar to set up me. “Come on, let’s get this over with. You’re not a baby about needles, are you?”

I swallowed. “Actually, I fucking hate needles.”

Sebastian and Oskar laughed. The big German grinned at me. “Then you’re in luck, because I have the gentle touch of a butterfly.”

Something told me that I was going to lose a lot more blood than I needed to tonight. But at least you’ll have your answers. Once and for all, you’ll know.

Still reeling from the bombshell arrival and departure of Bryna and my brother, I continued searching for answers. At least if I had some answers, I’d know I hadn’t blown up my whole life for nothing.

Luckily Weller was as good at finding people as everyone said. The address texted to me wasn’t far from the café where he usually stopped. I almost didn’t want to know what Weller had done for this information.

A part of me had started to feel like I was never going to be able to fill in the blanks.

Are you sure you want answers? Or do you just want someone to tell you it’s not true?

I did want answers. Hell, I deserved them, didn’t I? My whole life, everyone I knew and loved had lied to me. Whatever their reasons were, they were all still lies. My mother, the one meant to protect me and keep me safe, she lied too. And let’s face it, Tony was nothing but a liar. I hadn’t known honesty or compassion or real love until I was an adult. I couldn’t be blamed if I didn’t want to lose it. I was perfectly rational.

I rounded the corner toward the address, and I paused. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. With a sigh, I turned around. “For fuck’s sake Mueller, I understand. I get it. I’ll stay off the radar. If you just—”

The knife came out of nowhere. I felt, rather than heard, the displacement of air, the subtle swish. But I jumped just in time. Years of avoiding blows certainly served me well. Hands up, face protected, gut tight, just in case.

There was another slicing, displacement-of-air sound. I put up my arm in an L-shape to block at his wrist. Then I angled my wrist, grabbed hold of his, drawing him close. I tucked in my arm and twisted, effectively trapping him.

My assailant growled and then delivered the perfect knee strike to my lower abdomen. Not quite in the balls, but fuck that hurt. I still didn’t let him go, though.

I delivered a series of jabs to his face. Another jab. I didn’t stop until I heard the cluttering of the knife behind me. I shouldn’t have stopped though, because the moment he dropped the knife, he tried to grab me around the waist and grapple me down.

I delivered elbows on his upper back, aiming for his neck, and he slammed me back against the brick in the nearby alley.

I coughed as the air was forcibly compressed out of my lungs. “Motherfucker.”

I kept delivering those elbows. He landed several blows to my midsection. Those were far less impactful.

Finally, one of my blows landed on the back of his neck, and he groaned, loosening his grip. I delivered another one that shoved him back. And then I launched myself at him for some good old ground-and-pound. One fist, another fist, a third fist. I held him tight. Jabbing. Blood started spurting out of his nose and down his chin. He was coughing, his arms flailing.

“Who sent you?”

He was trying to say something, but blood was coming out of his mouth now, and it was probably making it difficult for him to talk. I pulled him close. “I said, who sent you?” I leaned closer.

“Fuck you.”

His accent was Italian, which made no sense. Tony was your run-of-the-mill, not-quite-southern, not-quite-northern con man. He had plenty of contacts in the US and Mexico, but I couldn’t imagine he’d have anyone in Italy who was willing to come after me. “I’m going to ask you again. Who sent you?”

The guy grinned. A nasty kind of grimace, with blood on his teeth and running down his nose. “And I said, fuck you. You’re going to die.”

“No, not today I’m not.” I heard the distinct, tinny sound of another knife. He had another blade, and I cursed low under my breath. His arm swung out, and I blocked it with my other arm, wrist to wrist. I snapped my wrist around his, grabbed it and twisted. But then he was using his arm, aiming the blade for my neck while I was trying to twist around to aim it for his chest. We rolled to the side, his strength beginning to win out.

I used to have the upper hand, but fuck, he wanted me dead. What the fuck was happening?

We rolled again, and he was on top of me. I was desperately trying to keep that knife out of my neck, my chest, hell, anywhere that was soft and squishy. Then suddenly, he was lifted off of me. As if by sheer will, I managed to move him back into less dangerous territory. As he was moving, I kicked, my boot landing at his chest, and he went flying. He almost toppled over the guy who’d pulled him off of me.

Mueller shook his head. “Seriously kid, you get ten feet away from me, and already, someone tries to kill you.”

Weller came around the corner a second later. “How the fuck did you get here so fast, mate?”

Mueller grinned. “I took the car. You were interested in following him on foot. Nonsense. I was more efficient.”

“What the fuck is going on you guys?” I asked while I walked up to Mueller and the guy with the knife.

“You still haven’t figured it out, mate? Someone’s trying to kill you. We kind of told you that from the beginning.”

“Yeah, but who? Tony Angelo? Or some other run-of-the-mill asshole?”

Mueller shrugged. “I’d like to find out. But—”

It was as if we all three heard it like a canon blast, but it was merely just a click.

The guy twisting in Mueller’s arm had reached behind his back. Then he had something in his hands. I didn’t even see what happened. Next thing I knew, Matthias’s hand reached out at lightning speed and jabbed the guy in the neck. And then there was blood. So much blood. Holy. Fuck.

Mueller just rolled his eyes. “Christ, mate. Do you understand how hard it is to get blood out of a vest?”

Weller just shrugged. “Well, it’s certainly a hell of a lot easier than getting brain matter out of a vest. Wouldn’t you think so?”

Mueller nodded. “Yeah, good point.”

He let the guy go, and he sagged to the ground, bleeding all over their shoes. I stared at them and turned my attention back to the guy on the ground. “You just killed him.”

Weller nodded and used his foot to kick the guy’s hand from around his back, a hand wrapped around a gun. Oh shit. We could have all been dead.

“Oh well…” Weller nodded. “Let’s get you back to the apartment. Are you ready to leave Italy now? Maybe head back to the islands where it’s safe?”

I swallowed hard. The islands were the last place I was going. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers. I’m going to see Pietro Luca.”

Matthias shoved me aside immediately. I had learned not to fight this anymore. It used to annoy me when Roone and Marcus would do it. But considering that motherfucker in the alley had attempted a full-on slice and dice, these guys were more than welcome to go in first. Besides, it wasn’t like Matthias was alone. I saw a car parked at the far end of the street where my Royal Guards sat. Two in the car. I’d gotten Sebastian down from his original eight to two. Well, two in addition to Oskar and Matthias. That was progress, at least. It still felt like I had a fucking entourage everywhere I went. And these guys were not nearly as cool as the guys from the actual show. Nor were they as schooled as Roone.

It hurt to think of my friend.

More than once, I’d tried to call Roone, to talk to him and apologize, but he never even texted me back.

Every time I called, it went straight to voice mail. And then when I called dispatch for the Royal Guard, they said he was on top-secret assignment. So basically, he was pissed at me and acting like a chick about it. Which, if I was being honest, he had every right to do. I hadn’t even told him I was leaving, which was kind of a dick move. But secrecy was tantamount, so it’s not like I could’ve actually announced, ‘Hey buddy, I’m not really a prince, so I’m going to go.’ Best not to announce plans when you’re trying to do something no one is going to be happy about.

There was something quite deadly about Matthias’s stance. His posture was rigid, but he moved with a certain kind of precision, a prowl. Careful but confident. No mistakes. I still couldn’t get it in my head how this guy was the hacker. To me, he seemed far deadlier than Mueller was. Matthias just seemed like a sharp razor.

Oskar seemed like more of a club. Both deadly instruments, but that razor man, that was going to hurt.

Matthias preceded me up the stairs to the third floor, making a left toward the old man’s apartment, but suddenly, he paused. He gave me an arm-up, closed-fist signal, which I took to mean not another fucking step. It was probably a good interpretation. His gun was out in seconds. He had it so quickly, I didn’t even see him draw. Blink of an eye. Then he slowly approached the door. I took a step forward. He didn’t even look at me, but instead, gave me a direct pointed finger, which told me to stay the fuck put. Thirty seconds later, he was out. He shook his head, grabbed for me, and said, “Oi, mate, got to go.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Where’s the old man?” I checked to evade his grasp, but damn he was strong. Good thing I was wily. A couple of seconds was all it took. He twisted my arm under his and snapped with the wrist. He was under orders not to hurt me, so he was trying not to. He was trying to restrain me, which was probably going to be a lot more difficult than with his average client. I landed a straight palm punch to his sternum. He oofed and let me go, giving me the opening I needed to run into the apartment, and behind me, he cursed.

“Make it fast. It’s not a good scene.”

And it wasn’t. There was blood everywhere. So much of it. It only took me a couple of steps into the apartment before I saw the old man in the corner of the living room, slumped over. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What the fuck?”

Weller gripped me by the collar and dragged me out of there. “Told you. It’s not a good sight. Come on.” A part of me couldn’t see the truth of everything sinking in. The old man was dead. I didn’t even know him. As far as I was concerned, he was nothing more than a possible sperm donor, so why did it suck knowing I was the cause of his pain? He didn’t deserve to die. The real question was, was this Tony’s handy work or someone else’s entirely?

Out in the street, Matthias signaled for the others, and the car came speeding up to us. Before I even knew what was happening, they had the door open and were shoving me in the back seat, head first. Weller was in the car beside me while we were speeding off. “What the fuck was that back there?”

He shook his head as he typed on his phone. “I don’t know mate. But something tells me it’s time to get the hell out of Italy.”

I could go back to New York City, but that location was a bit hot where Tony was concerned. I’d left my life though, the classes I was taking, my few last credits. I had enough to graduate, though, so that wasn’t even it. But God, I’d spent time building that life. And there was no going back now. Should I go back to the islands? It’s not like that was home either. But despite that being the truth, my heart squeezed at the thought of it. I could see Bryna.

Yeah, as if she wants to see you.

Just thinking of her face when she told me she didn’t believe me was crushing. I relived that particular nightmare often.

“What the fuck now?”

Matthias held up his phone. “I think you need to reconsider going back to Winston Isles.”

I glanced at his phone and there was a picture. It was of Tony. “Where was this taken?”

His lips set in a firm line. “The main island of the Winston Isles.”

“How quickly can we get a flight out of here?”

He nodded. “Already in the works.”

I needed to get to Bryna. My heart hammered, and my gut squeezed. He was on the island. Given what had just happened to that man who could have been my father and Tony’s direct threat, I needed to get there before anything happened to her. I just prayed to God I wasn’t too late.